


Heir Apparent

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Road to El Dorado (2000)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:43:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poorly planned and ultimately unsuccessful con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heir Apparent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Anj

 

 

This was going to end badly. The man chasing him was half again his size, and while Tulio would likely be faster under normal conditions, he hadn't had a decent meal in a day and a half. He felt that it was vaguely unfair that he'd be caught and punished when he hadn't actually managed to get away with any food or gold this time.

He yelped aloud when someone grabbed him and dragged him into an alley. It was a skinny blond boy about his own age. The other boy shushed him and pulled him down the narrow alley. "Up here," he said, climbing onto a window sill and bracing himself against the opposite wall. "It'll be safe up here."

Tulio had no reason to trust him, but he didn't have a whole lot of other options available. He followed the other boy up, which wouldn't have been possible if the walls hadn't been so close together. Once on the roof he crouched low, in the inadequate cover of a chimney, and watched as his pursuer searched the area for him and moved on. The man never once looked up.

When the man was gone, he moved away from the other boy, whose bony elbow had been poking him. "Thanks," he said, with most of his attention on his feet. He was much more nervous about crawling around on roofs when he wasn't running for his life. The blond boy followed him.

"I'm Miguel."

Tulio made it safely down to the ground, and Miguel kept following him. "Thanks," he said again. "I guess I owe you one."

"What's your name?"

"Tulio," he said shortly. He wished Miguel would tell him what he wanted and then leave him alone; people didn't just help each other for no reason.

Miguel trailed hopefully after him, trying to start a conversation, until Tulio finally snapped and shouted at him. Miguel gave him a look like a kicked puppy but left him alone after that.

He didn't see Miguel again until weeks later. He'd pulled off a successful heist and had gotten away with as much food as he could carry, so when he saw Miguel scrutinizing a merchant in preparation for his own scam, he gave him a share of what he'd stolen.

He didn't stand a chance of getting rid of Miguel after that, and it wasn't long before he didn't want to. Miguel was insanely optimistic, even when living on the streets, and really hadn't had any ulterior motives the day they'd met. Feeding two people wasn't actually more difficult than one, especially not when one of them could keep watch while the other worked.

***

They'd been living and working together for months, scamming gamblers and petty theft mostly, when the opportunity for bigger and better things came. It was an unpleasant, rainy evening, and they were taking shelter in a pub, hoping for an easy mark or at least cheap lodgings. It seemed that the servants of those locals wealthy enough to have them gathered there to talk and unwind. Miguel made friends among them and got in on their gossip easily enough.

Tulio was half-heartedly chatting with the barmaid, more because he hoped to get a discount on their drinks than out of any real interest in her, when Miguel came back, eyes glowing with excitement. "How would you like to be an heir?"

"What?"

"You remember that fat old merchant who died not too long ago? The one who had all his businesses set up in another city?" Tulio knew of the man, not that Miguel gave him a chance to say as much. "He was a bigamist, Tulio! His first wife took their son and left him years ago, so he brought his mistress here where no one knew them and married her. And now that he's dead-"

Tulio saw where he was going with this. "Now that he's dead, wife the second is afraid the son will find them and take his inheritance."

"Exactly. The way I see it, we go in there, say one of us is his son, take his inheritance and run."

"No, that would be wrong," Tulio said. Miguel gave him a skeptical look. "And also would probably make them more willing to fight for his money. Now, if his son shows up and *graciously* agrees to split his rightful inheritance with them, they'll be so grateful they won't ask any questions about it."

"Brilliant! Tulio, we're going to be rich!"

***

It surprised them both, how easy it was. The merchant had blond hair in his youth, so they decided Miguel should be his son and Tulio would be a servant traveling with him. The merchant's widow accepted this claim without much effort on their part, and as predicted she was visibly relieved when Miguel made his offer to split the inheritance.

("You're my half-sister's mother, practically family yourself. I couldn't just turn you out on the street.")

The widow gave them a room to stay in while they waited for a solicitor to work out the details and to convert two thirds the estate into gold. It would be easier to vanish with the gold than try to deal with or sell off the merchant's business interests themselves, but Tulio would later admit that they'd gotten greedy and careless.

***

"She's supposed to be your sister," Tulio hissed, dragging Miguel down the hall.

"Half-sister. She'd be my half-sister, if she were actually my sister at all."

"But if your non-sister's mother caught you two like that-"

"Caught us like what? I was flirting, I was bored, I wasn't actually going to do anything!"

"-they'd stone you for being some kind of unnatural pervert, or worse they'd find out our con and we'd lose out on an inheritance."

Tulio gasped, having given his dire predictions in a low but increasingly frantic voice without once stopping for air. Miguel poked him in the ticklish spot on his ribs, making him jerk away and release his arm. "I was _bored_ ," he said again. "Stop being so jealous."

"Jealous?" Tulio's outraged yelp echoed down the hall. "I'm not-" Miguel laughed and took off down the hall, and Tulio gave up all pretense of dignity and chased him.

***

In the end it wasn't any improprieties, real or imagined, or any virtue of the widow and her daughter that caught them out. The merchant's real son turned up three days after they did, and if he had ordinary black hair instead of blond, he also had a ring with his father's seal and several other heirlooms that proved to be quite effective at proving his identity.

Miguel and Tulio were locked up in the town jail for their troubles, and likely would have stayed there if not for the merchant's illegitimate daughter. Whether she liked the attention she'd gotten from Miguel or she just liked all the excitement, she seemed to have gotten quite a lot of her father's unconventional personality.

"My half-brother is offering to pay to send me to a nunnery. I think he expects thanks for his generosity," was all she said by way of explanation as she opened the door to the cell where they were being held. The guards were nowhere to be found, having been paid off with some gold and silver trinkets from the house.

They left town that night before the alarm could be raised, heading toward the coast. The cities were bigger there and full of new marks. Tulio couldn't think of much besides the candlesticks in their room, which had been solid if slightly tarnished silver, and how much they could have sold them for.

"You realize we have even less money now than we did a week ago."

"But it'll be an adventure! I've never seen the ocean, Tulio."

 


End file.
